NEIGHBORS / SHORT TAKES : Bright Buys : A Ventura antiques collector is selling a restored set of 75-year-old cast-iron street lights. But they don’t come cheap.

When was the last time you treated yourself to a nice set of street lights?

Well, then it’s about time.

And Ventura’s Mike Dyer may have just the pair for you.

Dyer, an antiques collector, is trying to sell two 75-year-old cast-iron street lights for $500 each.

He purchased them two years ago from a man in the San Joaquin Valley and then restored them.

“They’re elaborate, they’ve got a lot to them,” said Dyer. “They look real nice. I put one up in front of my house.”

Dyer is selling the lights, he said, because he doesn’t want to “fool with them anymore” and doesn’t really have room for them.

But don’t feel sorry for him.

He will have plenty of other stuff to tinker with.

“I collect a lot of junk,” he said. “I’ve got old bathtubs. I’ve got an old house (114 years old). I’ve got old furniture. I’ve got old dogs.”

There has been plenty of discussion over the future of the Queen Mary ocean liner, now sitting in Long Beach harbor.

Last week the harbor commissioners voted to fund the tourist attraction only through the end of the year.

But then what?

Ventura land planner Bernard Tamborello--yes, the man of a thousand ideas--has, well, another idea.

“Have the Queen Mary towed up to the Ventura Harbor,” he said. “Have school on the Queen Mary.”

Tamborello said the ship could be used by Cal State Northridge as a nautical satellite campus.

It could be placed next to a vacant 24-acre parcel of harbor land, he said, and no flora would have to be chopped up or torn down to accommodate the school.

Tamborello suggested this plan to David LeVeille, director of institutional relations for the Cal State University system.

His reaction?

“I think he thought I was joking,” said Tamborello.

CORRECTION: It seems the familiar image of dog chasing (and sometimes catching) postal carriers is not funny after all.

A U. S. Postal Service press release arrived last week stressing the seriousness of dog wounds inflicted on postal carriers.

This, as it turns out, is a particular problem during the summer.

We spoke with Marty Krueger, the postal service’s tri-county safety manager, to find out more.

“This time of year is normally our worst,” he said. “All the children are at home and (families) tend to let animals run freer when kids are home. A dog also gets more protective when kids are present.”

Since September, 1991, there have been 28 postal carrier bitings in the tri-counties, compared to 17 in the same time period from 1990 to 1991.

More than half of those 28 dog bite incidents took place in Ventura County.

Krueger couldn’t account for the increase in the total number, or for the disproportionate number of bites in Ventura County.

Krueger did, however, describe the most common scenario: “The problem we are having recently is where a dog is visiting (a residence) and the carrier doesn’t know the dog is there,” he said. “Unfortunately they are dogs we haven’t had the privilege of meeting before.”

OK, we’re convinced of the seriousness of this issue.

From now on we’ll just laugh at people who have trouble with banana peels.